Abstract

A case study of a country park in Surrey was used to study the public perception of themanagement of the site: for example what the users of the park felt about the standard ofmaintenance of the park. A site description was written using a phase 1 habitat survey (seeappendix 4). Research included questionnaires and research into previous published works onthe park. The site description included county, borough/district, local planning authority,national grid reference, climate, geology, topography and hydrology, and soil. Questionnaireswere handed out to park users and answered on site. A mixture of quota and conveniencesampling was used to gather data; quota sampling was used to gather the widest range of parkusers and convenience sampling was used to pick the sample. The results have shown that thepeople who use that park are happy with the management that the council provides and arepleased with its overall appearance and maintenance. They commented on the way that thetrees were well maintained, and the variety of wildlife within the park. The pathways and carpark on the whole also got positive reactions from the users. It is critical that any policy isconstantly reviewed at all stages of making. The results showed that there seems to be a needfor improved communication between policy-makers and the public and the need to addressthe perceived ineffectiveness of public participation. The main limitation to this dissertation isthat more questionnaires could have been collected to give a more accurate result or otherresearch conducted.